


Two Explorers In The Dark

by watchyousmile



Category: Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, Midtown
Genre: Halloween, Like I glossed it over somewhat, M/M, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-28 00:26:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8423599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watchyousmile/pseuds/watchyousmile
Summary: The story of how and why Joe finally moved up the chain.Thank you to Rosie (rosiedoesfic) for beta-ing this and for her endless support in the matter. Some pretty shitty pieces of writing would have ended up in this fic if it weren't for her.Enjoy this to its fullest extent. I worked so ridiculously hard on it.





	

 

Halloween has always had a certain feeling to Joe. Not exactly like the colors Patrick feels for certain things; to Joe, Halloween is always more of an aesthetic, a certain glow cast over that point in time, or in the sake of this holiday, an eerie, thrilling darkness. Different than the lights flashing behind his eyes and the starting anew of New Years, different than the chintzy organ music at the back of his mind, blue and gold, for Hanukkah.

Instead, it’s the anticipation the night before and the calm excitement (if that’s a thing) the next morning. Especially when he can casually mention “It’s Halloween,” when he wakes in Fall Out Boy’s miniscule apartment, strewn with small boxes of Halloween decorations and past costumes, as well as paint and cloth and Andy’s sewing kit for new ones, even though no one in the band is even close to crafty. But he knows it isn’t Halloween quite yet. Like the Jewish holidays that Joe never quite got the meaning of, Halloween always starts at night.

Joe has no idea what to do this year.

Normally by the end of September he would have a costume already planned and maybe even an ideal of how the night may go, though he doesn’t typically make any sort of social plans (if there isn’t a Halloween show that he either wants to attend or is performing at) until the night before, but Joe’s mind is blank. And it’s October 30, which likely means he’ll be alone for the night. But Joe never knows; his band, Patrick aside, is quite the spontaneous type.

As much as Joe loves this camaraderie on the road, he thinks it’s time for it to end. Fall Out Boy is on the way to their last show of their tour (they were able to bail out of a Halloween one this time, to Joe’s relief. He adores his adorers, but Halloween is the one night that he wants to himself, his own friends, a night he can shape however he wants. Not a sweaty room with people he doesn’t know. Any other night he would be fine with that, more than happy, but _not tonight_ ).

Joe conveniently forgot to call shotgun, and now waves of yellow highway lights hit his eyes as Andy fiddles with the heating up front (not that it matters to Joe because Pete stuffed his laundry bag in between the front seats. “To keep the heat in,” he said, but he hadn’t been thinking of Joe in that matter and now Joe’s nose is numb and Patrick’s fingers look blueish-yellow in the light). Joe wants to hold Patrick’s hand, make it warm again.

Instead, he picks up a Sharpie from the crusty, littered, grey-carpeted van floor, reaches over, and draws something resembling a jack-o-lantern on the laundry bag. Below it he writes, “HHHH (Happy Halloween, Heater Hogs)”. He doesn’t exactly know why, but Patrick finds it funny.

As Joe listens to Pete and Andy’s muffled voices in the front, talking about their costumes and Halloween pranks, parties, playlists, and he surveys their ideas. Yes - they’re original. Something that Joe would never think of, but that’s because they’re immature Pete-and-Andy ideas. Not I-just-thought-of-this-but-it’s-actually-kinda-clever Joe ideas. It’s entertaining to listen to them however, and Joe makes threads out of the different topics that Pete and Andy riff on. One could call their entire conversation comedy, but Joe can’t be bothered to explain exactly why to himself. He weaves the threads of conversation like God from the Torah stories would weave light, and he feels omniscient. Joe keeps listening to the static Pete-and-Andy radio station, scouring every sentence for something he could use to salvage a dead Halloween.

“Who else is even playing tonight?”

“No idea, really. It’s one of those shitty festivals; I’m still pissed that we couldn’t’ve landed a better Chicago gig.”

“So, we’re playing with a bunch of strangers who wanna be the next Joey Ramone or something ridiculous like that.”

“I guess, man. I only really got us a slot because this is Midtown’s first show for their tour and I want to feel like I’m continuing something, y’know? I hate when tours end. At least I’ll know that Midtown’s keeping it going for us.”

“I had no fuckin’ idea that Midtown was playing! Before or after?”

“After.”

“Oh, fuck. Sticking around after a show is shit.”

“I know, dude.”

A memory surfaces to the front of Joe’s mind and replays itself. More a timeline than a memory, really. Joe likes timelines, the past and future all laid out in front of him. So, he turns his memory into one.

The timeline begins in 2000, because Joe’s been watching Midtown for a long, long time. In fact, he remembers exactly how long; he was sixteen. He was somewhere close to the back of the show, and he could hear people cheering, screaming the lyrics, but to him it was white noise. He could zone out and focus on the music. Not that it was good. He didn’t really like it, actually. In fact, Joe didn’t even really know why he went, and it wasn’t his first concert, but he had had one the best nights of his life.

In retrospect, four years later, he realized that he was drawn to the people _making_ the music. He was on the elevated part of the floor and he was being shoved around, but he felt like a standing island in the sea, and he could see everything. He could zoom in to every detail, everything he felt was attractive in all of them.

Especially the bassist.

At the time, Joe didn’t know his name. But by the time his hoarse, husky voice announced the last song of the show, Joe knew _him_. He knew the glimmer of the sweat on the bassist’s neck and face. He knew his facial expressions and the words they threw at him, _hot_ and and _determined_ and _confident_. Joe knew the stitching in his jeans and his worn-out sneakers. Joe knew his hair, sticking up with sweat. Joe knew his wet T-shirt, stuck to him, a wet spot on the chest. Joe knew how his voice sounded when he hit the high notes and when he decided to scream. Joe expected everything, and felt a bit like a conductor or a puppeteer, playing him on a string, planning his moves.

It was kind of stalkerish. But to Joe it felt like predictable comfort. And by the time he went home, Joe was ninety-nine percent sure he was gay. As he looked up through the skylight in his bedroom at the dim grey of the sky that had lulled him to sleep for his entire childhood, he knew he would never get that same feeling, that same deep knowledge with anyone else. Maybe not even any other guy. That bassist had struck a note in his heart and it was still ringing.

Midtown never came to Joe’s town again. To this day, Joe hasn’t seen them for over four years. But an idea is now starting to hatch from the egg that is his memory.

What if. What if? What if, hypothetically, he could meet up with Midtown after. Get to know the bassist. Perhaps, on an off chance, they would click, and maybe, if everything goes well - which Joe isn’t sure would happen - they could spend Halloween with each other. Maybe, if he’s lucky, without anyone else. Joe knows he’s pushing his luck. But suddenly, he himself is pushed to the edge of his seat by the notion. And Pete hitting a speed bump, but that’s secondary.

“How much longer till we’re there?” Joe whispers to Patrick, leaning to the side to get closer to him.

“Pete, Joe wants to know how much longer till we’re there,” Patrick says, raising his voice over the radio and the laundry bag.

“Um. Around three hours, man? I dunno. The gig is in three hours and if we’re not there by then, we are fucked,” Pete replies, looking back over the graffitied laundry bag. Joe has half a mind to tell him to take it off, but he doesn’t want Pete and Andy to see what he wrote on it so he keeps his mouth shut and thinks about what to do with three hours.

Joe hates himself for not splurging for another album for his iPod, because he certainly does not have three hours’ worth of music that he wants to listen to. Not even close.

If he had thought of it a little earlier, Joe would have played that game that he’s done since he was eight, where he would write on his arm the names of all the truck companies he saw passing by as the sun went down. But it’s pitch black except for the tall yellow highway lights, the lane marks of the road, and the occasional reflector sign. And even if he could strain his eyes enough, he doesn’t feel like going to the show with names like _Speedy Transport_ and _Oceanex_ scrawled all over his forearm in permanent marker. He’ll save the tattoos for later.

Then Joe realizes that he could just talk to Patrick. And that makes things a lot easier. He weaves his own light of conversation consisting of whispers and secrets hidden behind the front-seat barrier, questioning random aspects of the tour, forming inside jokes. And before he knows it, they’ve fallen asleep on top of each other, Joe tangled up somewhere in Patrick’s arms, resting against a guitar case and some sweatshirts and it is peaceful in Joe’s least-favorite way.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And then Joe’s ripped from the semi-comforting blanket of sleep in the form of Pete shaking him and Patrick and Andy pouring lukewarm water on them, a rude awakening back into consciousness, and Joe isn’t ready but no one seems to care. Even Patrick is absorbed in his own tiredness as the world quickly resumes revolving right where it left off, not bothering to wait for him.

Pete and Andy are pulling amps and pieces of the drum kit out from the cozy little gear-fort that he had created for him and Patrick, and everything is ripped apart and spinning as he figures out that they have to play now. It’s still night, and that makes Joe even more disoriented.

“I. Cannot play,” musters Joe croakily, rubbing his eyes for what already seems to be the nth time.

“You shouldn’t’ve fallen asleep. Then you would be less tired,” Andy says, not even meeting Joe’s eyes as he unloads, leaving Joe to wonder how that even works. As if Andy reads his mind, he says, “If you hadn’t fallen asleep you would’ve been used to not sleeping as opposed to sleeping and then having that taken away from you.”

And in Joe’s tired mind that makes enough sense, and he doesn’t want to think about it anymore.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The show goes worse than expected, and that’s saying something. Joe thought he knew all of the songs in his sleep; he’s apparently wrong, as he keeps dozing off in tuning breaks and rushes to tune at the beginning of the next song, often going too fast and not getting the right pitch, making the whole song sound off. Patrick, being the music freak that he is, begins to get frustrated, but in a low-key enough sort of way that Joe doesn’t feel too bad about it.

“I’m not having any problems with this. What’s going on?” Patrick asks Joe out of the corner of his mouth during yet another tuning break, while Pete goes on and off about the importance of fans and how grateful Fall Out Boy is to be where they are

“I dunno, man. I’m really wiped,” Joe responds, feeling like the words aren’t coming from his mouth at the right time. Something is out of sync.

“Just try and keep your eyes open, okay?” Patrick pleads, and then turns away. Joe thinks he hears him say, “For the sake of the show.” Joe nods wearily, fiddling with the knobs on his guitar. Goddamn drop D.

As the first notes of Grand Theft Autumn ring out through the sorry excuse for acoustics in the basement venue, Andy leans over his drum kit and says, almost too quickly, so Joe has to work to decipher his words; “Focus on just one fan. Play for them. That’s what I do.” Joe likes this idea. He can count on Andy to give him short bursts of wisdom at just the right time.

Joe scans the audience for a kid, one that looks enthusiastic, dripping with sweat, jumping, screaming at the most random of times. Just then his roving eye almost misses a small girl struggling to see past the tall kids at the barricade, darting back and forth, waving frantically. They make eye contact for a brief moment and Joe has an impulse to wink. The kid’s eyes shine like she would give her life for the show, and keep that shine throughout the concert. Joe sneaks in two more winks and tries to throw a pick - just one of his yellow ones with the grips, nothing fancy - but a barricade kid catches it and the girl’s shoulders sag. Damn.

This girl looks so dedicated; he can’t get over it. This must be her first concert. The shine in her eyes is new. He thinks about how when he was at concerts, the performers always went for the fans they could see. He wonders if she had ever been noticed, if she had ever been to a concert before.

The kid made the show worth his tiredness, but Joe’s endlessly glad when the it’s over. He can sit on an amp backstage and watch Midtown with a better spot than any of these thrashing, desperate dunderheads, and he finds himself at sixteen again, waiting for the room to go dark with a hundred others, feeling the excitement so thick he could smash his guitar through it. In ten minutes he is going to see his bassist boy (who he now knows is Gabe Saporta) again, and Joe doesn’t even care if he has a girlfriend or whatever by now. Tomorrow night Gabe will only be Joe’s.

When the show starts, Joe’s feeling of calm before the storm is replaced with a feeling of longing to be with the kids again, standing on the floor, because hot damn is this show great. He remembers the songs, dusting off ancient lyric sheets in his mind, like a vague memory of something that used to be such a big part of your life and is now coming back, like a certain TV show you watched when you were a kid or an inside joke cast aside by an ever-growing friendship. Midtown is back in business. He sees his fan shining her old eyes at his bassist, and also he can get a great view of Gabe’s ass and he’s never been more relieved and lucky at the same time.

Joe doesn’t want the show to end. He’s on the edge of his amp as he hears the final note resonating through his eardrums, and feels the familiar satisfied drainage, transmitted from performer to audience, overtake him. When Midtown comes literally twenty feet away from him to put their instruments away, his stomach flips. Now or never. Joe opens his mouth.

“Hey, you’re the Fall Out Boy dude, right?”

Shit. Oh Lordy Lord in heaven, this is not how he had planned it at all. Gabe is perched on another amp beside Joe, looking directly at him. Joe has to resist the urge to fall over and scream surrender.

“Um. That’s me.”

“Cool. I liked your show. You look totally dead, and believe me, I can relate.” Gabe’s voice lifts him up to confidence, and Joe realizes that he actually does know how to speak.

“It’s hard not to when Pete Wentz fucking wakes you up after two hours with gross warm water. God, I hope no one pulls any Halloween prank shit because my nerves are frayed to the last, uh, nerve string.”

“You shouldn’t’ve fallen asleep then,” Gabe says, smirking.

“Why is everyone saying that?” Joe says frustratedly, letting his head fall back. “Not that I mind hearing it from you, but….” Gabe laughs, and grins knowingly.

“Hah. What’s this you say about Halloween pranks? Wanna pull some? I’m free.”

“Really? Thanks! My Halloween would be dead otherwise,” Joe replies, trying to contain the growing excitement in his voice and redness in his face.

“Well, let’s make it an undead Halloween for you, huh?” A smile nearly splits Joe’s face.

“Do you still do the whole dressing-up deal?” he asks eagerly, hoping to God they could do some sort of matchy-matchy costume thing.

“Hell, yes! Last year I was a fuckin’ skeleton and I creeped the shit out of my entire band because they couldn’t see my face, and they didn’t know why there was a skeleton in their fucking dressing room.”

“That must’ve been crazy, man,” Joe says, for lack of anything better, although he does think it’s funny.

“What if we dress up as each other, bro? That’d be insane.” And Joe is totally down for this. In this moment in time, inside of the slightly mildew-smelling backstage area with dusty floors, broken guitar stands, and amps for chairs, there is nothing he wants more than to dress up as Gabe and for Gabe to dress up as him. Nothing at all.

“I’d be fucking down, man. Can we meet up tomorrow afternoon or maybe evening? I obviously can’t do morning.”

“Of course. I’d be good around five. Now let’s go outside; this place is starting to get a little creepy with no one in it.” And with that they exit the venue and walk outside to chilly fall air, brown sky, and a group of stray fans who ask for autographs and hugs and crowd them a little bit. They’re pretty chill, though, in comparison to some of the other shows they’ve done. The almost-frozen dirt and dead leaves crunch under Joe’s shoes as he moves to sign various merchandise that he forgot existed.

Just as he finished signing yet another copy of Take This To Your Grave (he got sick of seeing his own bored face quite a few shows ago) he sees someone tug on Gabe’s shirt. It’s the kid who Joe dedicated his show to, who he winked at, to whom he gave his time. Up close she looks to be around fifteen, and she’s tugging on Gabe’s shirt like a little kid, a woman with a kind smile behind her than Joe assumes to be her mother. This kid has nerve. Joe just wants to sit and watch. There’s something about her.

“Hey, kid! What’s up?” Gabe says, smiling a friendly smile as if the kid is the most important thing to him. She smiles back, calm and leisurely, showing a full mouth of braces. Joe remembers when he had them. Not fun.

“Hi, Gabe,” she says back, as if they’re already friends. Joe wants to be her friend. He loves all the fans. “Oh, and hi Joe. I’m so happy to see you guys! You’re my favorites ever.” His heart turns all warm and fuzzy.

“Hey. You did great tonight. Is there anything you want us to sign? Or did you just come back to hang out?” Joe asks. He’d be happy with either.

“I, um, do have a CD, but that’s about it. I wish I had more, because it’s hard to find someone who shares my music taste. They all seem to like the same things with the same sort of sound, but to them I guess it’s kinda special because there’s a little synth here or a new sound effect there. But I like your music. It feels like home,” she replies.

And then at that moment, Joe identifies exactly what he sees in this kid.

Himself.

The look in her eyes is exactly the look he used to give Gabe, in the vain hope that he would notice him. The look you give to your idol, someone who is older, cooler, accomplished so much more than you. In this kid’s eyes, Joe is the idol. In Joe’s eyes, he sees himself as the worshipper, who has finally become some sort of an equal to his own idol, talking and chatting backstage.

And at the same time, she sort of shares his feelings about music, and however much he tries to be accepting, there’s always that little twinge of we-make-real-music-and-they-don’t-so-why-are-they-famous-and-we’re-not. And this kid understands it.

Joe doesn’t know what this girl sees in him, a dorky Jew barely into his twenties, with a needle nose and puffy hair who dozes off onstage and wants to play dress up for Halloween. But fans, from Joe’s personal experience, will take anything that comes at them.

Only now does Joe realize that the very base of being a fan is a sort of chain, an escalator moving up. From idol to worshipper, worshipper to idol. Gabe, Joe, fankid. Three generations of awkwardness and looking-up-to. One day, this kid will be an equal to Joe. He will see to it.

“What’s your name, kid?” Joe asks as he signs the kid’s battered copy of _Evening Out_ with the Sharpie from the van, remembering the Fall Out Boy Super Friends club as he runs his thumb over the lettering. The band apparently still gets letters to that address. Sometimes Joe will stop by and read one, and be in a good mood the whole day. Somebody out there loves him, and this kid is one of the somebodies.

“I’m Evangeline but everyone calls me Angie or Ellie,” she says, fiddling with the belt loops on her jeans. Evangeline. The name sort of reminds Joe of a star but he can’t exactly place why.

“Cool. So did you come far? I know a lot of people live just outside of the city,” Joe says, meeting her gaze as he hands back her CD.

“My mom and I drove around four hours. We live in Auburn Hills,” she says, grinning.

“What the fuck! That’s a long drive to come out to see us,” Gabe says disbelievingly.

“It’s worth it. I begged my mom to go,” she says, blushing.

“Heh. How long have you been in the scene for?” asks Gabe.

“Around a year, but it feels like longer. I’m only fourteen, so I’m not exactly a veteran.”

“That’s okay, kid. By the time we’ve been around for a few more years, you’ll be up there with the rest of ‘em. Just don’t let go, okay? Listen to the music that feels like home to you. And if that’s our music right now, then stay tuned,” Gabe says, chuckling as he looks into her curious brown eyes.

“I agree. You’re awesome, Angie. It was really great to see you tonight. Come back soon, okay?” says Joe, genuinely hoping that she would. He wants to see how she turns out in the end; if she continues to listen to Fall Out Boy and Midtown, if she starts a band of her own and she spends hours sitting in a van waiting for hard work to pay off, and he wonders if it will. If she’ll play stadiums, even though Fall Out Boy hasn’t gotten quite there yet. If she makes music that means millions to millions. If maybe one day some kid will look up to her and say that she’s their favorite, and she’ll remember Joe, and Joe will remember Gabe, and the chain will go on and on.

He remembers being fifteen-sixteen. He remembers sleeping on top of a guitar case and a shitfaced band member and he remembers bad choices and reprimands, and he remembers sweat and fear and trying to fit in. He prays that this girl will have less of a rocky beginning than he did, but sometimes those kind of beginnings strengthen you for the rest of your life. So he just wishes she’ll be strong.

“I will,” Angie says. “I promise.” And with that, she gives Joe and Gabe super-tight hugs, runs back to her mom, and squeals happily, jumping up and down in her arms.

“Man, that kid reminds me of me at her age,” Gabe breathes, running his hand through his hair.

“Yeah. When I was fifteen I was still touring with Arma, and I wonder if she might be in a band like that.”

“For sure, man. I’m glad you think the same way. It was something that I wanted to mention, too.”

“Hey, we still on for tomorrow night?” Joe musters up the courage to ask. He feels like the kid had brought him and Gabe closer together somewhat, because she was kind of reflective of the two of them. Joe wonders if Gabe ever had the time to look up to somebody.

“You fucking bet. I’m gonna try and make a Joe mask. Wait, lemme take a picture of you so I know.” Joe laughs, but sits still as Gabe gets out his red digital camera and Joe smiles cheesily as the flash goes off. Joe thinks that he can picture Gabe from memory now.

“Where should I meet you?” Gabe asks.

“Pete’s throwing a Halloween party at our apartment, so I guess just meet there and we’ll take off and scare little children or something.”

“Damn, Joe Trohman has a dark side. Never knew.”

“Fuck you. Let’s get outta here.”

“Agreed,” says Gabe, and they part their separate ways into the thin blackness of the night, smudged with the reflections of remote lights of all different colors, making Western lights that Joe will remember maybe even longer than Gabe.

Joe falls asleep within ten minutes of lying down on an array of somewhat-clean clothes, the laundry bag that he had written on (it seemed to have fallen down without anyone noticing it), head in Andy’s lap (Patrick is up front with Pete). It’s such a relief once he finally realizes that he’s drifting off, and he lets it happen, sinking into the familiar blanket of sleep and gladly letting it wrap around him, snuggling into it as his consciousness of himself becomes heavy, soft, warm. Even in the chilly night the warmth of sleep shields him from the cold. Little distorted thoughts invade his mind like bothersome elves; or perhaps deformed saplings that never quite grow into the trees that would be Joe’s dreams. He never dreams on the road; not necessarily a sign of a sound sleep, more like he’s asleep deep enough not to dream, but can still wake up at the slightest touch or sound. Angie’s smile is the last thing he remembers before he finally nods off into not-dreamland.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joe has a good reason to wake up this morning- he’s hit his head on something, causing his eyes to snap open and his mind to jerk awake. The sky is a clouded, pale grey with rays of morning sun peeking through little incisions in the blanket of clouds. The van is just swerving around the corner to the apartment building that the band lives in, and the radio is quietly playing Springsteen, which is a bit disorienting because you’re not supposed to quietly play Springsteen.

“Joe. You okay, man? You banged your head pretty hard on the seat,” Andy says quietly, and Joe realizes that he’s now lying on the van floor as opposed to his starting position in Andy’s lap, a heavy tour-is-over feeling still covering him like a blanket, but at the same time he feels free from the anticipation of yet another show.

“I think so,” Joe croaks, and his own voice seems alien to him.

“Hey,” Joe realizes. “It’s Halloween.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rest of the day isn’t that eventful. There’s light suspense of seeing Gabe, and it increases over the course of the morning as he becomes less tired, but after meeting up with him last night it feels like nothing more than going out for lunch with Korean Tom Cruise or one of Pete’s other friends.

He likes being home with the sparse collection of guitars that he keeps in his bedroom, his record shelf, his clean bathroom, his family photos. It feels peaceful and quiet and the best thing he could possibly have at the moment.

Pete and Andy go who-the-fuck-knows-where, probably to catch up with some friends and barf up liverwurst, and Patrick stays in the apartment, dusting off the storage bin of Halloween decorations and adorning the apartment with them, making up for lost decorating time as he replaces the bowl on the living room table with the spooky light-up one, places surprisingly real-looking fake spiders in various places inside of Pete and Andy’s room (go Patrick), whizzes around, swings around and hangs a glow in the dark skeleton on the outside apartment doorknob.

“Joe,” Patrick calls.

“What?”

“Do you wanna do something tonight? I’m not really feeling the whole Halloween thing. Maybe we could look at some old photos… or check the Super Friends mail… or write a song. I’m in the songwriting mood.” Patrick’s tone of voice is hopeful, like he really wants this.

All of that sounds so tempting to Joe. He loves the feeling that he gets when he can reminisce over that time they played a certain basement and the kids were so great, or sometimes when no one paid attention to them, there were photos for all of it, and with photos, came memories.

And almost nothing was more therapeutic to Joe than noodling around on his guitar, thinking of this or that and how others would be receptive to it, but more importantly how Patrick would be receptive to it, and sometimes all of their writing sessions without Pete were just riffing on (no pun intended) how much Joe sucked at coming up with guitar parts.

And everyone knows by now just how much Joe adores the Fall Out Boy Super Friends Club.

But, he has plans. And as much as he hates to tell Patrick he’s doing something else, it is his duty as a friend.

“I’m sorry, Patrick. I’m going out with Gabe tonight.”

“Oh. Okay,” says Patrick briskly, and Joe can see his shoulders slump and his face begin to look crestfallen. The full weight of having two different relationships hits Joe at that moment- the honest, loyal friend and the unpredictable ideal, and Joe is torn between the two. Just seeing Patrick’s face and feeling his heavy disappointment makes him almost want to cancel with Gabe.

He takes an Oreo from a package lying on the kitchenette counter and stuffs it in his mouth, walking back over to the decorations to see if there’s any left to put up. Just the bowl of scented pinecones remains at the bottom of the bin, and he takes a whiff to see if they’re still good. They’re not.

“Patrick, uh, don’t put out the pinecones. They’re stale,” he calls again.

“Shut it, the Oreo is messing with your sense of smell,” is Patrick’s reply. It does not sound like he is joking. In fact, he sounds quite mad.

“How do you know I’m eating one?” Joe asks slowly, surprise and guilt in his tone.

“Because they’re mine, and I can tell when someone is eating my Oreos,” Patrick snaps.

“Okay, dude, chill. I couldn’t resist. They’re double stuffed.”

“Sure,” Patrick says flatly without a hint of real understanding. He places the pinecones on the living room table anyway, beside the Halloween bowl, and they don’t smell half bad.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By the time Joe catches up on lost time and laundry, it’s five o’clock. He’s waiting by the door, running through possible scenarios in his head like the nervous thirteen-year-old that he is and at the same time thinking about how he can make it up to Patrick.

When the door finally opens, Joe jumps, but it’s just Pete ridiculing him for his ridiculous crush. Joe feels that familiar heat in his face as he resists the urge to crawl into an imaginary hole and die. He’s in no mood to tell Pete to go easy on him because of what happened with Patrick.

But before Pete gets a chance to close the door behind him, Gabe pushes his way through the doorway, grinning widely at Joe. A cascade of hellos ricochets between them and Gabe basically invites himself in, stealing an Oreo from the package on the counter and Joe swears that he can hear Patrick grumble.

They talk a little about how Midtown’s tour kicked off and how Gabe poured Mountain Dew down Rob’s pants (“The front,” he added), and was banished to the trunk for the rest of tour, and how the heating is already broken, and how Heath purposefully left everyone’s clothes at some coin laundromat between Chicago and Des Moines and he’s seemingly having fun watching them slowly gain it back in extra merch that they keep after shows, and are seriously considering investing in Midtown boxers because “you can’t go front-back-inside-out forever, dude”. Joe is thoroughly engaged by the way Gabe talks; all sly looks and grins as he manages to keep a relatively straight face while Joe is laughing his goddamn ass off and everything feels surreal.

After a while of talking, Gabe suggests they go trick-or-treating and Joe happily obliges. Gabe steals Pete’s pillowcase and Joe takes his own and they walk out together. Joe glances at Gabe for reassurance because suddenly he is very nervous to be twenty and trick-or-treating, and Gabe produces two masks out of seemingly nowhere, and they are perfect replicas of Joe and Gabe’s faces. Except for they’re not really masks- it looks like Gabe had just printed out pictures of their faces in the library or something and cut eyeholes through it. Joe stifles a laugh.

Gabe does that grin that makes Joe’s knees turn into jelly and hands him the mask of Gabe’s face, and Joe full-on laughs and just puts it on because why the hell not.

“I’m you,” they say almost in sync, chuckle again, and then they’re off, Joe sneaking a quick look into Gabe’s laughing eyes.

Joe is finally with Gabe, and yes, it feels amazing. He should probably get over it now, but his hormones aren’t quite finished compelling him to hold Gabe’s hand. Gabe would probably wriggle out of his grasp to clutch his (Pete’s) pillowcase with both hands anyway, so Joe leaves it alone.

Once they’re down the stairwell, in the lobby, Gabe and Joe pull their masks up to their foreheads for some air, exhaling loudly as they’re at last able to breathe without the stifling, itchy paper.

“Let’s go hit the sidestreets,” Gabe says excitedly.

The late October chill in the air is nothing compared to the chill running down Joe’s spine when he lays eyes on the wonder ahead of him- all down the sidestreet, houses lit up in orange and gold, fake cobwebs, indigo dusk sky with the crescent moon daring to show itself early for tonight. The sky contrasts beautifully with the lights, and underneath its chilling canopy are people with wide smiles expressing their true selves in the form of costume, some happier to do so than others but all experiencing the magic of Halloween. Joe understands why this only happens once a year.

“This is so fucking cool,” Joe breathes, and Gabe smiles, grabs his forearm, yanks Joe’s mask down over his face, and whisks him to the first house, and thus begins the adventure. And Joe is fucking loving it. Even though he’s getting criticism, more weird looks, he just doesn’t care. There’s no one he’d rather be for Halloween than someone he’s looked up to for the longest time, and he’s never daydreamed this particular scenario but hell, he’s daydreamed plenty. Who gives a damn if people don’t get that. Who fucking gives a damn about anything really. And with that, Joe grabs Gabe’s hand and squeezes it, and Gabe squeezes back. He seems content with a one-handed grip on the pillowcase.

The lights and sights don’t get any less exciting as the night progresses, and the dynamic duo continue trick-or-treating relentlessly, having grown accustomed to the annoying paper of the masks. As long as Joe is Gabe and Gabe is Joe he is willing to keep it on indefinitely.

The pair take frequent breaks when the pillowcases get full to eat a bit of candy before going out again. During one of these breaks, sitting on the roof of some abandoned hut of a garage (Gabe’s choice) Gabe says, “We should up the ante a little bit.”

“How so?” asks Joe, intrigued. Well, as intrigued as he can be with his mouth full of nougat.

“Do something borderline, man. Breaking the rules. Spray paint something. Climb higher roofs. I dunno.”

“I’m a fan of that idea like Angie is a fan of Fall Out Boy,” Joe says excited and hopefully showing it.

“Whaddaya wanna do first?”

“Huh,” Joe replies, tracing a finger around his kneecap. “Spray painting interests me.”

“We can work that in. Start looking for cans.” And that’s all he needs to say, Joe and Gabe hop off of the garage, pull their masks back on for clandestinity, and peer between and behind houses, under cars, beside garbage bags for anything that a hoodlum kid could have left lying around.

Just when Joe thinks there’s no way he could find one, much less one that actually has stuff in it, a dull shine catches his eye from underneath a beat-up Mercedes. “Found one,” he calls to Gabe, but when he reaches under and picks it up, it’s actually a can of silly string.

“Oop, never mind. ‘Tis but a humble silly string,” Joe says, theatrically waving it in the air.

“Even better,” Gabe says, and Joe can picture Gabe’s eyes lighting up behind the mask. “Is it full?”

“Huh? Oh, it’s never been opened.”

“Fucking jackpot, dude! What are you gonna spray?”

“I don’t really know…” says Joe, trailing off. “How about, like, a car.”

“Uncreative. Where’s your criminal _mind_ , bro? You can do better,” Gabe eggs on.

“Oh, I know. How about like, around the streetlamp. Nonono, on it. So that the light is all weird. It’ll be creepy,” Joe says, his mouth talking of its own accord and him letting it.

“ _There_ we go,” says Gabe, slinging an arm around Joe’s shoulder and swaying him back and forth. Joe sees lights go off behind his eyes.

They sneak up to the nearest streetlamp. Joe gets on his tippiest of toes and makes sure to get the string all over the light, and sure enough it casts a weird-ass shadow, the light slashed by the abundance of string over it. Joe steps back to admire his work.

“Ah… nice job, señor,” Gabe says, patting Joe’s back. Joe loves when Gabe speaks Spanish. Joe will not tell Gabe that he loves when Gabe speaks Spanish.

They string a few more lights in that fashion, until a very short, very unintimidating man in around his sixties tries to stop them. He has a kind face and grey eyes that reflect the streaked lamplight in an eerie way, shadowed by bushy grey eyebrows and wearing a striped winter hat and a winter vest to go with it, even though it’s like sixty degrees outside. He looks kind of like a parking ticket checker or a snowplow man or one of those odd-jobs people.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asks Joe and Gabe, glaring up at them. Like _up_ up. Joe doubts that he’s even five feet tall.

“Um… what does it look like,” Joe replies dumbly. He’s not good at this confrontation stuff.

“It looks like defacing property, and you’re going to have to stop.

“Make us,” Gabe says defiantly. Joe cheers him on in his head.

“Okay,” says the man nonchalantly. He reaches into the breast pocket of his weird puffy vest and pulls out a police badge.

“Shit,” Gabe whispers through gritted teeth. “Run!” They take off, sprinting back down the street as fast as they can. Joe’s running so fast that he thinks that if he goes any faster his legs will give out, and everything's a blur, and at one point he thinks he may have jumped over a car. The policeman is chasing them. He is surprisingly quick.

Joe and Gabe are coming up onto the back of a residential patch, and are headed right for a dumpster with nowhere to turn around. They’re walled by houses.

“See that dumpster?” Gabe asks him, talking fast.

“Yeah,” Joe responds.

“Good. It had better be crystal clear, because we’re about to jump onto it in a second.”

“What?!” Joe yells. Gabe’s lost his marbles.

“You’ll be going fast enough to get on top of it. Just- use it like a staircase to get onto the roof of that house.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t care! Get ready.”

Joe braces himself as best he can- for his legs to be broken, to fall on his face, to get arrested- whatever. He keeps telling himself he doesn’t care, because this night has been a good night, and if he dies or something he’ll have good memories for the afterlife. He keeps telling himself that he is with Gabe, and right now that is the best thing that he can be offered. Death by dumpster is a small price to pay.

That’s the mental preparation bit. What comes next is a bit harder.

Ready. He looks to Gabe. Gabe’s eyes are fixated on what’s ahead.

Set. He mentally writes a last will and testament.

Go.

It’s like flying- he leaps into the air, feels and hears his feet clang onto the rim and then the opposing rim. He kinda wishes there was one of those lids or something, but he’ll take extra precautions anyways.

Joe’s feet slip on the edge of the roof and he can feel himself tumble, everything moving in slow motion, but then he regains his footing and there he is on the hard concrete of someone’s flat apartment roof, and Gabe’s there too, grinning at him, but when he looks down the policeman is trying to climb the dumpster (and partially succeeding).

Joe looks ahead to see row after row and column after column of apartments, sort of like a checkerboard and all sandwiched together. Good for….. Hold on a minute.

“Gabe. He’s coming after us. We need to jump the houses.”

“Sure,” Gabe says without skipping a beat, already running over the roof. Joe follows, even though he’s still slightly out of breath, and together they play roof chess, jumping diagonally and sideways and forwards but never backwards. Joe doesn’t want to look back.

It’s the most fun game he’s played in a long time, kind of like being above the clouds on a plane ride when all that’s left to you is clear sky for miles around, and you feel at the top of everything. Except this has more adrenaline involved.

The policeman actually doesn’t follow Joe and Gabe onto the roofs at all. So their running away was all for naught, but it was still fun as all hell. Joe and Gabe collapse onto the roof, looking up at the empty sky. It’s only slightly unnerving that there’s probably someone giving out candy in the very apartment below them.

“Whoo,” is all Joe can think of to say.

Luckily Gabe fills that gap for him. “Climbing roofs? Check. Spray paint? Kind of check. I think we’re pretty much done, amigo,” he says, smiling. Joe notices the moonlight makes his eyes glow eerily, adding a bit of a Halloween touch to them, but even so, up in the cold sky, Gabe radiates warmth and familiarity. Joe wants to hold on to that, to snuggle into him. He is getting kind of chilly up here, so he gently leans into Gabe to steal a little bit of his warm glow, stomach jumping with courage and nerves.

To Joe’s absolute joy, Gabe attempts to put an arm around him, but unfortunately they don’t really fit together. In the movies Joe’s seen with Andy on stormy afternoons in the apartment, one person is always comfortably tucked underneath the other’s arm, leaning into their side, and this is far from the case. Joe’s head doesn’t quite reach that comfortable spot on Gabe’s chest right beside his arm- rather he’s leaning against the side of Gabe’s chest, Gabe’s ribs awkwardly digging into Joe’s temple, and Gabe’s arm doesn’t quite line up with the back of Joe’s neck, so he just keeps it down, gently resting a hand on Joe’s knee and it doesn’t feel sexual.

It really doesn’t work, but for some reason it isn’t that bad, at least not to Joe. To Joe it feels like bliss, watching row after row of apartments with lights peeking through the cracks and the sky a safe, navy blanket above them. The concrete of the roof is starting to give Joe dead-ass, but he doesn’t mind. His eyes are permanently fixated on his and Gabe’s feet in front of them, Gabe’s a good six inches further away from his, their legs bent, looking like something from a movie, even if their position is not.

Now that Joe’s met Gabe in person, he can fully confirm the fact that he still does have a massive crush on him, but this time it’s more real love than puppy love, not needing to observe every inch of Gabe as much with the luxury of time and knowing that he’ll still be there, which was something that he didn’t have at concerts.

He is endlessly grateful that someone up there likes him, and has allowed him this opportunity, even though Gabe still won’t be there always like Patrick is, which leads him to believe that he should still cherish this night with Gabe, because it’s the closest he’ll ever get to a date.

“What a fucking night,” Joe remarks, and it feels like the night is over, even though Joe would never want it to be. “It’s been, like, fucking awesome to be with you, man. Honestly, it may sound weird, but it was kinda my dream. Did you know you were my idol for like, four years?” And all of Joe’s nerves are gone. _Why were they there in the first place?_ he wonders.

“Seriously?” Gabe asks, putting his arm around Joe and letting him fall into that comfortable-but-not position again. He could get used to this.

“I shit you not, four years. I saw Midtown in like, 2000 and literally all I could focus on was you. I was like, ‘wow, this guy is hot’. And I was really, like, eyefucking you. It was ridiculous.” Gabe laughs, and Joe can feel it everywhere.

“Like, when I saw Angie, I wanted to give her a lot of my attention because she reminds me a lot of what I was to you back in the day,” Joe continues on. “To me, it was kind of a chain, with you at the top, me in the middle, and her at the bottom, and these past couple of days have been a lot about moving up the chain-”

“Because you used to be a fan and now people are becoming fans of you,” Gabe finishes for him.

“Right! And after all that’s gone on over the past two nights, I feel like I’ve sort of become an equal to you… I, um, hope you understand,” Joe says, fading off at the end of the sentence and looking down to the spot where Gabe has his hand on Joe’s knee.

“Hah! Kid, you were equal from the start. In fact, you’re up way higher than me. You have a metric-ass shit ton of fans! Midtown’s small now, amigo. But it’s cool you looked up to us. It feels really great, because we got the moshers, you feel? They’re great kids, but they’re not devoted fans in the way you are, or at least seemed to be.”

“You know what’s funny? I have a feeling I might run into Angie in a few years’ time and tell her those exact words.”

“That’d be whacked, dude.” As Gabe says that, Joe finds a question in his mind.

“Hey,” Joe says, just as Gabe opens his mouth to say something else. Oh, well. “Was there anyone you looked up to when you were a kid? Who was the Joe to your Angie, metaphorically?”

“Good question. For me, I went to a lot of concerts of bands that I really, really liked. And I mostly just treated them as a good time, not a very emotional thing where you’re seeing the people that are basically your soundtrack right in front of you. In retrospect it’s one of the things that I regret the most at this moment. I guess I looked up to everyone, really. If you were to ask sixteen-year-old me about any one of the guys I liked, I’d probably sound just as ambitious and devoted as you, but for more people. It could have gone either way.”

“That’s interesting, actually. I’d say I’m pretty much the opposite. Take last night as a prime example. As soon as Pete said Midtown was playing after us, I had the idea to ask you out because I just _liked you that much_. But you beat me to it!” Joe says, using a TV show-villain voice (most probably Doofenshmirtz) for the last sentence.

“Yeah.. well, it worked out pretty good for us. Spending tonight with you is honestly just amazing.”

And something inside Joe pops, and and lets the warm, heavy amber of pure happiness run through him, filling up his entire body with confidence and bliss, and he places his hand behind Gabe’s neck, brings his head down, and kisses him, because now is the time.

Gabe doesn’t hesitate, and their mouths begin to move together and it feels like a new year, a new time, and light dances behind Joe’s eyes and there’s a new feeling for this. Not a color, but a whole, elaborate feeling, pillow soft and dancing with telltale sparks.

It goes on, and there’s tongue and warmth and understanding of each other developing like crackling sparklers, but then it ends, and Joe’s kind of okay with that. He has to come up for air sometime.

After a while, Joe speaks and Gabe listens. “I was thinking about how being with you is so different to being with my band. Like, Patrick is always very familiar to me, and he’s loyal, and honest, and he always knows exactly what’s done, and, you know, what has to be done. But you’re unpredictable. We did a lot of things and stuff tonight that I would have never expected to do. And it’s a different side of things. Even though Patrick, well, he was a bit upset that I couldn’t have spent the night with him. But I think I deserve it, and it was definitely worth it, if you know what I mean,” Joe says, blushing. “Sometimes I wondered what he was doing. I hope he’s okay.”

“He’s _fine_ , you deserve it,” Gabe says, in a throw-caution-to-the-wind voice. “Now shut up and kiss me, I liked that.” Joe fully agrees with Gabe. Patrick and Joe have gone through so many fights and periods of not speaking and hot weather that was so bad he felt like he was gonna die, but then he wasn’t. And surely Patrick has idols that he’s dreamed of kissing too.

So Joe and Gabe kiss some more, a not-so-perfect match, the heat between them skyrocketing. Sometimes when Joe’s kissed boys (in the few instances when he has) it’s felt like he was thirteen again, exploring a new territory. But this isn’t the case- Joe feels twenty, and even though this is new, he’s a big boy now. He can handle this, and he’s ready for it.

As the kissing becomes more intimate, Gabe moves his hand up at a steady pace from Joe’s knee to his thigh to his hip, humming questioningly again Joe’s lips and Joe gives a slight nod because he has an idea of what’s going to be next. Joe’s mind is all _holy-fucking-shit, I’m living the dream_ , but his physical presence is calm and aware, the night breeze gently doing its breeze thing, and Gabe’s hands doing their hand thing to unzip Joe’s pants, palming him in all the right places.

Once the real thing gets started it’s a little awkward, all weird positions and trying to find a good pace, trying to get it over with to reap the benefits. But there’s also good things, the things that Joe can get lost in and blur together, like the smooth up-and-down of Gabe’s hand, and kissing necks.

Having Gabe here, in this very scenario, is one of the things at the very top of his wish list, but once he has it it doesn’t matter quite as much, because he feels that it’s a constant right now and it’ll be here for a while longer. With that thought in his mind, Joe lets himself melt into Gabe and he doesn’t have to think anymore.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once they’ve finished up, the sense of disbelief revives itself once again in Joe. He literally just got jerked off by with Gabe Saporta on a roof, the one person he’d been dreaming of and idolizing for four entire years, and Joe is over the moon.

“Damn,” Joe breathes, connecting his lips to Gabe’s once again. He can feel Gabe humming an agreement. They speak in hums, and he thinks there’s a connection between the two of them, a rope that binds them to each other even when they’re not fully aware of it, even when they’re not thinking about the other. That wasn’t the handjob necessarily, but it was the conversation, the fact that their minds are somewhat on the same page, and that’s enough for Joe.

Through a cascade of muffled laughs and “Come on, man”s, Joe feels the little annoying bits of bright cloudlessness in the sky piercing through his tired haze, even though he doesn’t want to go to sleep quite yet. Instead he replays the night in his head, committing the feelings to memory. He wants to feel it again a thousand times. So indirectly, he asks to.

“I don’t think I have your number, Gabe,” Joe mumbles, looking up through the infinity that is the midnight-blue sky.

“I can tell you, but I can’t write it down. Do you think you can remember it?” Gabe asks, glancing to Joe.

“Yeah. I’m trying to remember so much about this night, man, I think a number won’t hurt.” So Gabe tells it to him, and Joe relays it back without missing a beat, not necessarily to Gabe but to anyone who wants to listen, to know that finally, after all this time, Joe has Gabe Saporta’s phone number. And he’s not gonna forget it.

That show with Angie feels so far away now compared to the events of the night, and Joe’s surprised by how fast the time has gone. He always is.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joe walks home, because as it turns out him and Gabe only really took themselves around eight blocks away from Joe’s apartment, which is a bit of a laughable disappointment. Joe thought they had gone much further.

After Gabe bids his final goodbye with a kiss deep enough to make Joe’s stomach flip once again, Joe slides himself off the roof into an alley, lights flashing behind his eyes as his feet smack against the asphalt, not from the pain, but because of just how dazzling the night was. He feels so fucking bad it’s over. Nothing like this will ever happen again.

As he walks, still replaying the night like a constant rewind, questions appear in his mind. _People say you only get so much joy. Was this my joy? How long until I experience it again? Or did I use it all up? How would a night like this go with Patrick? What do I tell Patrick when I get home? What can I do to make it up to him?_

The questions just keep coming, but after a little while Joe pushes them aside, jumbling into his memories of Halloween night, but he doesn’t care. Why should it bother him? Feeling bad about the night would be dwelling in the past, and worrying about what would happen when he gets home is overthinking about the future. So now, Joe’s going to try and live in the present.

Look at the lights, no one’s taken them down yet, even though the streets are bare. Look at the sky, now fully dark and starless, still a protective blanket, still a reminder. Look at… his watch, it’s 2:30 in the morning. Joe needs to get home. But… look at the decorations, look at the streetlights, look at his own shoes. The night is still a thing to marvel at, and it’s a different experience by himself. Maybe not as adrenaline-filled, but peaceful in Joe’s favorite way.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Joe finally gets back to the apartment, the whole band is sleeping, with the exception of Pete, who is still not home. Patrick is tossing and turning in the bed opposite his, but still seems to be asleep too. Andy is in the other room, so Joe’s just going to assume he is sleeping, but he might be summoning vegan Satan or some shit really quietly. You can never know with Andy.

Soon Joe, too, falls into a dreamless sleep, comforted with the one thought that he’ll talk to Patrick tomorrow.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s another grey morning, and Pete’s trying to mix fruit loops and chocolate milk for breakfast. Andy is nowhere to be seen. And the whole kitchen smells like puke and pinecones.

Patrick’s sitting at the table with a surly look on his face, bed head intact, because it’s ten in the morning, which is classified as Too Early For Patrick. Once he sees Joe, however, his face brightens up, and Patrick stands up and guides Joe to the other room to talk to him.

“How was, uh, your night?” Patrick asks, sleep evident in his voice, but not too much that he’s not thinking about what he’s saying.

“It was pretty good, man. It was t-totally different to being with you, I mean,” Joe stutters.

“What do you mean?” Patrick asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, you’ve always been one of my closest friends, man,” Joe starts as he hears a spoon fall to the floor. He could kill Pete. “And you’re loyal and honest and I know you inside out. But the thing is, I used to be a huge fan of Midtown. Like I saw them in concert four years ago, and I was, like, majorly obsessed. So I had been wanting something like that night for a while. But it was different. I didn’t know Gabe as well as I knew you. And while he may have been my ideal at the time, it was totally unpredictable. A lot of stuff happened that I never would think to have done. You and Gabe, you’re like two different worlds to me.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Patrick says, and Joe can hear gears turning in Patrick’s mind. “It was really lonely without you. Over the course of the night I was just thinking about the things we could been doing together if there wasn’t a better offer in the way. I had a totally different ideal, and it wasn’t in the form of one person. But if it was, it would be you.”

“I feel that way too, dude. I mean, I get where you’re coming from, but this was a fanboy crush. This was a whole ‘nother _level_ of me being weird. Gabe’s awesome, but he’s not you.

“I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t wanna hurt you,” Joe continues.

“It’s fine now. You’re always gonna be here. I’ve been alone before,” Patrick says forgivingly, with a hint of a flashback in his voice.

“Glad you realize,” Joe says, chuckling. “So did you write a sad song or something? Raid all of our chocolate?”

“I just played Star Wars Battlefront in my room with the door locked,” Patrick says weakly, the last word dissolving into a laugh, and Patrick laughs, and Joe does too, and they’re doubling over because Joe didn’t have to worry at all. Patrick was safe in the hands of Star Wars Battlefront the whole time. Pete doesn’t even notice the tears rolling down their faces. He’s too busy with his newest cereal creation.

“Damn… wait,” Joe says, an idea forming in his mind, something that would tie this whole endeavor together.

“Do you wanna go check the Super Friends mail and get out the photo albums? We could make up for lost time,” Joe says, a smile creeping its way onto his face.

“Hell, yeah! We haven’t checked it in forever. I wonder if people are just sending prank letters by now.”

“Nah, I know our fans well enough. They wouldn’t do that,” Joe says, his mind beginning to wander somewhere else, to another time.

“No, but the photo albums. That’s gonna be a laugh,” Patrick says, looking into Joe’s eyes, and it feels familiar, it feels like home. It brings Joe back to earth

“Remember when I shaved my head last year? I looked like the ugliest fuckin’ worm you’d _ever_ see.”

That makes Patrick laugh again, and Joe feels warm inside. It’s not the same sort of warm happiness that he felt last night but it’s more of an honest one, and it feels more normal, more what he would think of when he hears the word “happy”. It’s not the same lofty heights of bliss he felt last night, because he’s not that Joe anymore. He’s just that guy in his pyjamas who plays lead in Fall Out Boy. He’s earning fans one at a time, and he’s working his way up every day. He’s happy with himself the way he is, he learns from what he was, and he’s looking forward to what he will be. And to Joe, that’s just fine.


End file.
